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As mentioned I am now in the beginning stages of this project, the printer mentioned does not need to be the printer I use, it just happens to be on the plant floor. I have some capital to purchase needed equipment, software etc.

You mentioned exporting data utilizing an OPC Server,

Years ago I had a very similar project where I had purchased OPCWare for Excel, however this software is no longer compatible with Microsoft Excel 2010 and possibly not with a CompactLogix processor. (I quit reviewing when I seen it wasn't compatible with Office 2010.)

Is there 'other' software available that you would recommend or have used in the past. Or maybe the question would be, how would you go about using an OPC Server as suggested ?

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If you have RSLogix5000/Studio 5000 then you will have a licenced version of RSLinx Classic.

This can be used as your OPC Server..all you need to do it point your server to your data source (ie your PLC) then you just need to decide what you do with your data and how you store it.

Its funny you mention Excel- as Rockwell do have a few example of importing/exporting tags via the RSLinx OPC Server. Have never tried it myself but seems very straight forward.

As an example- at every falling edge of a machine cycle, you could import your data tags from your PLC and populate to a database of excel sheet. Then you could print manually or automatically at the end of every shift.

How does that sound?

Regards

Daniel.

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I then added the tag links of the data that I am wanting to print to the Excel Spreadsheet, I then wrote some script within Excel that if a certain cell equals 1 then Print the spreadsheet. Once the spreadsheet prints clear data, repopulate with new data from the PLC and wait again for the cell to generate a 1.